Practice Area: Elder Abuse

PHYSICAL ABUSE

When nursing home, assisted living or residential care staff members physically abuse or sexually abuse the patients in their care, there is no excuse.

It could be that the resident patient was abusive to the staff, but that is no reason for the staff member to be abusive to a vulnerable person. There may be issues of underpaid staff members, poor education, poor training or inadequate staffing. Again, those are not excuses for abuse.

Physical abuse may be hidden by clothing and is often on the body’s trunk. Even broken bones on a patient with limited mobility may not be easily noticed, and the patient may not be able to communicate the source of the pain.

Because the most vulnerable people have difficulty in explaining or understanding what happened, sexual abuse may go unnoticed until the patient is diagnosed with an STD (sexually transmitted disease), a urinary tract infection or unusual bleeding.